Sighting
Description: One of the most interesting cases in the Ufological phenomenon,
particularly the one that happened on June 29, 1979.

Offshore of Gorgona, during a
beautiful summer day, in the afternoon, the yacht Rainbow II (31 meters in
length and weighing 51 tons) was heading for Corsica, after leaving Viareggio at 15:45. On
board was the owner of the boat, who was a businessman in Milano, his wife
and children and a crew of 11 people. At about 18:30 the beautiful and
tranquil day was interrupted by a bewildering and disturbing event. About
three miles ahead of the prow of the boat they saw a black cylindrical shape.
This object was coming
out from the surface of the sea like a tower and rose 30 meters from the
surface. The yacht approached the object and noticed the dimensions
and shape of the object. When they were within one and a half miles from the
object, it disappeared
below the surface with a loud rumble in less than three seconds. This
sighting was also observed from the harbormaster's office on Livorno. The harbor captain remained in continuous
radio contact with the crew and in particular with its wireless operator, Mr.Guzzi.
But this phenomenon did not end with the disappearance of the object.
Although the compass showed the yacht as headed in the right direction, the
yacht instead drifted about 12 miles south and ended up in Bastia. (They were supposed to arrive in
Macinaggio.) This change of course was unexplainable because the sea was
calm, there were no currents, and the compass was working perfectly. Another
strange happening was the dog on board the yacht started barking and appeared
scared and terrified.

Nobody knows what happened. To date
this case is one of the two real UFO sightings described in the catalog.
Unfortunately, there was no scientific investigation of this sighting. All
the scholars had to work with were the various and similar newspaper
articles. An attempt to interview witnesses was made by G.O.R.U. (An acronym
of a small ufological group) of La Spezia who was able to collect all the
messages that the Compamare (Sea department-Navy) of Livorno and Maridipar(Unknown
naval designation) of La Spezia sent to all the vessels that were in that
zone informing them of the presence of a floating obstacle.

I want to point out that this event
has been listed in a scientific catalog as a UFO, even if there was no
scientific investigation, because the newspaper articles were very detailed
in describing the shape of the object and the reports of the witnesses.